Obama should commemorate, and celebrate

Osama bin Laden wasn’t killed in a video game, where decisions can be reversed with the simple pressing of a reset button, and no one’s life is actually at stake. The SEAL operation that killed the terrorist leader required serious decisions, and real risk, as President Obama and others explain in the Rock Center with Brian Williamsspecial, “Inside the Situation Room,” airing tonight on NBC.

It shouldn’t be surprising that presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his party would be reticent about commemorating the anniversary of President Obama giving the go-ahead that eventually killed bin Laden. It is an election year, and while they don’t merit a free pass just because it’s expected, of course they’ll decry the recent Obama campaign ad (below) that seeks to remind voters of what the President did.

Romney first tried to criticize the decision itself, saying “even Jimmy Carter would’ve given that order.” That was already a silly thing to say; in a sports paradigm, Romney is the fan yelling from the stands to go for on fourth-and-35, and President Obama is Bill Belichick on the sidelines. But that talking point really blew up in Romney’s face when folks like the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent and others reminded us that once upon a time, Carter did give a similar order.

“If you want to take credit for [killing bin Laden], I have no problem with that at all,” the former New York City mayor said. “I wish he wouldn’t use it as a source of negative campaigning. I think that’s a big mistake.”

It’s not hard to remember how that is in stark contrast not only to how Giuliani has comported himself in public since 9/11 – Frank Rich handles that nonsense very well in his first response here – but also it contrasts with President Obama’s predecessor’s reaction to being asked about killing bin Laden less than a week after the attacks. From bin Laden’s New York Times obituary, published one year ago today:

“Do you want Bin Laden dead?” a reporter asked President George W. Bush six days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I want him — I want justice,” the president answered. “And there’s an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive.’ ”

Obama’s aides say the president isn’t spiking the ball — and he acknowledges the difficult and unpredictable road ahead in Afghanistan. But they don’t deny ramming the ball down the GOP’s throat after watching [George W.] Bush and his surrogates paint [John] Kerry, a Vietnam War hero, as a weakling unwilling to face global terrorism in Iraq.

Is Obama’s foreign policy perfect? Hardly. But Osama bin Laden is dead – and whether or not you think it’s tasteful to do so, the President is well within his rights to remind voters of it.